Most U students will use their spring break to escape to a locale with warmer weather, but the Utah baseball team has work to do.
The Utes will be traveling to Arizona to take on the Wildcats in a three-game series this weekend, their conference opener. Arizona comes into the game on a six-game win streak, including a series sweep of Portland.
Last season, the Utes lost the series to the Wildcats. Utah will have to rely heavily on its defense to control the games due to Arizona’s batting average, which is tops in the Pac-12.
However, Utah’s offense is just starting to get the ball rolling and the players know how important it is to give their pitchers some leeway during these games.
“It’s very important,” said junior Cody Scaggari. “We’re all about sticking with the process. As long as we are doing things the right way, discipline and everything that we do, it’s going to pay off. The momentum is very important as long as we keep playing as well as we can play.”
Scaggari also contributed a lot of the season’s success to the pitchers, as they have been the most consistent aspect of the team thus far.
“They’ve done a really good job all year and as long as they continue to do it, I think we’re going to be pretty successful if the offense keeps doing what we did last weekend,” Scaggari said.
The Friday night starter will be junior Bret Helton, followed by junior Dalton Carroll on Saturday and freshman Jayson Rose on Sunday to close out the series.
Carroll said the biggest factor for the Utes from here on out is health. The team had a scare last weekend when junior Wyler Smith went down with an injury, but after examination the injury wasn’t as serious as initially thought.
“I think the main thing is staying healthy and feeling what we felt after this series. What it is actually is to go out and compete all nine innings and finish off a game is the biggest thing. Especially going into [conference] play, if we can win those last innings, I think we’ll have quite a few successful games and series,” Carroll said.
Carroll said last weekend’s opponent in Kansas posed a lot of the same problems for the Utes as Arizona will on Friday. He said their hitting is similar if not better than the Jayhawks’.
Utah head coach Bill Kinneberg said the resiliency will carry them through the rest of the season and that no matter the outcome, they are going to give it everything each and every single game they play.
“This team is never going to back it in,” Kinneberg said. “They’ve worked way too hard. They’ve got a lot of character. There is no quit in them. That is not going to happen. If we don’t win another game the rest of the year, [on] the last game of the season, they’re going to play hard.”
Friday’s game between Utah and Arizona is slated to start at 7 p.m. MT.
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